"Virgil, you weiner."

Ed Harris. What a stud. Way to save the world from nuclear war with a bizarre water-controlling alien species by being willing to sacrifice your life to disarm a nuclear warhead that some psychotic asshole of a Navy SEAL sent into the depths of the abyss. A gold star to you, my good sir.

Anyway, The Abyss was an interesting movie. I know that the word interesting doesn't necessarily denote something good, but I think it does in this case. Clearly I haven't quite made up my mind yet. In no way did I enjoy The Abyss as much as The Terminator, but it was still two hours and forty-five minutes of my life that were relatively well-spent. I was definitely surprised at how normal most of the movie was (normal being the operative word).

The Abyss tells the story of a pretty random group of people who work on an oil rig in the ocean. When a US submarine gets struck down by some unknown party (most people think it's "the Reds"), they get sent to rescue any survivors and check stuff out in general. The rig workers even get the help of some Navy SEALS (all except one end up dead or being total jerks). For most of the movie, they're legitimately trying to do what they're supposed to do without falling into the abyss and never seeing the light of day again. Obviously, they encounter some problems with this, but whatever. It's to be expected. I'm going to make a suggestion now. If you plan on ever seeing this movie, don't read on (even though I kind of already ruined part of it in the first paragraph). Heed this warning or pay the consequences.

I was totally surprised with how normal the movie was until maybe the last hour. It went from a moderately realistic plot line to one riddled with aliens. Ouch. However, considering that I was dealing with James Cameron, I was willing to put up with the large fluorescent amoebic monster/alien/machines to see where it all went. And go it did. To cut the introduction short, Ed Harris frolics (sinks) his way more than three miles down into the abyss to disarm a nuclear warhead. After he arrives and accomplishes his mission, he doesn't have enough air to get to the surface. Ed Harris (self-sacrificing and valiant as ever) accepts this doomed fate extremely calmly and sits back to enjoy the eerie and oddly-present iridescent lighting in the deep evil abyss. He prepares himself for death. BUT NO! Suddenly, a neon floaty alien comes to his rescue, takes him by the hand, and shows him their marvelous underwater city of alien/monster/machines. Once safely inside, they manipulate the water enough to give him some air to breathe so he doesn't actually die. To cut to the chase, up on land the aliens are threatening the entire world with a mile-high tsunami wave that promises to wipe out the entire population. Meanwhile, Ed Harris is underground and the aliens are explaining, through the magic of television, why they're doing what they are. Of course, they don't actually carry out the nefarious (but well-deserved) scheme because of Ed Harris's selflessness and honor. Go figure. Finally, they somehow float their entire city up to the surface of the water, rescuing the oil rig and freaking out everybody topside. Wow.

That's pretty much the movie right there. I apologize for the large amount of plot summary, but there really was no better way for me to explain myself. And before I forget, may I please talk about my absolute favorite part of the movie. Prepare yourself.

So...Ed Harris and his wife are stuck in a mini-submarine that is quickly filling up with water. They have one dive suit between them (Ed has it). If they don't do something soon, they're both going to die. They quickly decide that Ed should drag his wife's body through the frigid ocean back to the oil rig where (hopefully) they can revive her. Of course, things don't seem to go as planned. I should probably interject the fact that, at this point of the movie, my mom had come downstairs and was watching with me. I should probably also say that, earlier in the day, we had gone to a reception for a university in Hawaii that I might attend to be a marine biologist. Keep that in mind. In the movie, we have Ed Harris desperately trying to revive his dead frozen wife. He tries futilely to use the defibrillator, CPR, he even resorts to slapping her across the face and yelling "Goddammit, you bitch!...Fight! Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiight!" At this point, they show the aforementioned dead frozen wife, very blue in the face and very clearly dead (unfortately, she later came back to life). Then my mother turns to me and says "Oh, Katie, that could be you!" Thanks, mom. Much love.

Overall, The Abyss was not my favorite James Cameron film. However, I still enjoyed it greatly and am still willing to adventure further into Cameron films (although I may avoid Piranha Part II: The Spawning). I haven't decided whether or not this makes me a terrible person.